3D Animation Final Project
A Cryptid Meet-Cute
Overview
This was my final project for Marist College's 3D Animation course that I took in the spring semester of 2022. It was animated in Blender, but I had done most of the modeling work in Maya. The project's requirements were to create a sixty second animation featuring sound effects, camera motion, & our own rigged models. I utilized a mothman model I had made earlier and added an armature to a flatwoods monster model I had made for an earlier 3D printing assignment. Overall, I really enjoyed this project and I learned a lot about the process of going from idea to storyboard to animatic to final animation. I had planned to animate mothman falling out of his perch on the tree but due to time constraints I cut it and stitched the two scenes together with a fade to black, sound effects, and a screenshake effect. Looking back at this a year later, there's a lot I would have done differently with what I know now. Regardless, I still am quite fond of this little project.
What Would I Do Differently?
This being a final project for a college course, I wish I had more time to work on it. I wanted the Flatwoods Monster to appear alien in her movements but watching this back now I think she comes off more rigid than I would have liked. With more time I would add more polish to her movements, like adding more neck and head movement to the animation of her turning around around the 0:40 mark. There was more I could have done to bring more life to her character without going as far as I did with the Mothman model.
I also would have put more time into the environment if I had more time. It was mostly constructed out of game assets but I would have loved to have constructed a more detailed, higher poly environment to match the characters.
Models Breakdown
Faces: 3,602
Tris: 6,996
Bones: 26
I'm used to lower-poly modeling for game assets, but since this model was intended for a pre-rendered animation I knew I could go for a higher poly count. I ran a subdivision modifier on the model to get a smoother look and added sharp edges where appropriate to make sure it looked right.
The skirt was made using a cloth modifier on a plane to get smooth movement easily.
Faces: 14,374
Tris: 7,522
Bones: 49
Again, this model is higher poly than I usually work on. A lot of that just came from simple subdivision on the ears and eyes, but I think it looked good in the final product regardless of how efficient it is. Of course, if I had more time I would have worked more on that.
I'm proud of the armature, especially the bones in each of the eyes which allowed the character to be much more expressive. This process taught me a lot about specializing rigs to maximize my ability to add character to my models.